Journalists
Killed in 1999: 36 Confirmed
Argentina: 1
Ricardo Gangeme, El Informador Chubutense, May 13, 1999, Trelew
Gangeme, 56, editor and publisher of the weekly magazine El Informador Chubutense, was shot and killed by a gunman in the town of Trelew, Chubut Province. At 1:28 a.m., as Gangeme was parking his Chevrolet in front of his apartment, a man shot him point-blank in the head with a .38-caliber pistol. A police officer who heard the shot arrived within a few minutes. Witnesses saw a man fleeing the scene on foot. Gangeme's wallet, which contained checks and a large sum of money, was not taken, making robbery an unlikely motive.
Gangeme founded El Informador Chubutense in 1992. Since then, the weekly has become well known for denouncing corruption and revealing intimate details of the lives of local authorities and businesspeople. According to local press reports, Gangeme's hard-hitting journalism earned him many enemies.
Burma: 2
U Hla Han, Kyemon, September 27, 1999, Rangoon
U Tha Win, Kyemon, October 2, 1999, Rangoon
Journalists U Hla Han and U Tha Win, both employees of the state-owned Burmese newspaper Kyemon (The Mirror), were allegedly tortured to death by military intelligence agents, according to an October 7 report carried by the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).
DVB said that 27 employees of the newspaper were taken in for interrogation shortly after the newspaper's September 25 edition carried a picture of military intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt under the headline "World's Greatest Crook." U Hla Han died on September 27, and U Tha Win died on October 2, according to the report.
In a statement sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the ruling junta denied taking any action against Kyemon staff. "We did not believe it was deliberate malice...no one was detained or charged," said the statement, which blamed the headline on an apparently inadvertent printing error.
The junta's statement confirmed that newspaper employee U Tha Win had died, but "said he had been an alcoholic and passed away in hospital on September 30, after slipping into a coma days before the paper's blunder," reported AFP. The statement said that U Hla Han had retired from Kyemon 10 years ago.
In 2001, sources in Rangoon told CPJ that U Hla Han and U Tha Win were indeed punished for the Kyemon headline and had died in official custody.
Colombia: 5
Hernando Rangel Moreno, free-lancer, April 11, 1999, El Banco
Rangel, a free-lance journalist who worked for the newspaper Sur 30 Días and local radio stations in El Banco, Magdalena Department, was shot four times in the head while watching a late-night boxing match on television.
Local sources told CPJ that the journalist regularly denounced administrative corruption in the office of Mayor Fidias Zeider Ospino Fernández. Just prior to his death, the journalist had organized a community protest against the mayor. Local reporters seemed wary of volunteering any information in a climate that has become increasingly dangerous, making it difficult for CPJ to confirm when and where Rangel had published his articles. Rangel was attacked in 1996 while covering community affairs for a local radio station, according to local journalists.
A case was formally opened against Ospino Fernández on December 7, according to the Attorney General's Office, which confirmed that Rangel had published stories critical of the mayor. A few days later, Ospino Fernández was arrested and charged with ordering Rangel's murder.
Jaime Garzón, Radionet, Caracol Noticias, August 13, 1999, Bogotá
Two gunmen killed political satirist Jaime Garzón, host of a daily morning show on the Bogotá station Radionet and contributor to a television news program called "Caracol Noticias." At 6 a.m., as Garzón was driving his Jeep Cherokee to the Radionet studio, two men on a white motorcycle intercepted him, shooting him repeatedly in the head and chest.
Before his death, Garzón had frequently been threatened by Carlos Castaño, leader of the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary organization that is fighting against leftist guerrillas. Garzón's colleagues informed CPJ that the journalist had scheduled a meeting with Castaño for August 14, the day after he was killed. The AUC denied responsibility for Garzón's death, and it remains unclear who ordered the murder. While some local journalists blame the AUC, others blame drug traffickers or the military. The likely motive would have been Garzón's contacts with left-wing guerrilla forces.
Before launching his career as a journalist and satirist 10 years ago, Garzón served as an elected official in Sumapaz, a region near Bogotá that is dominated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia's largest leftist guerrilla movement. More recently, Garzón used his stature as a well-respected broadcaster to negotiate for the release of victims of guerrilla kidnappings. He also served on an independent commission that was mediating between the government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), another leftist guerrilla movement, and was scheduled to meet with imprisoned ELN members.
The gunman who shot Garzón allegedly belonged to a criminal band known as La Terraza. Castaño admits he has hired La Terraza to carry out a number of crimes in recent years, including kidnappings. The official government charge sheet accuses him of hiring La Terraza to kill Garzón. In mid-2000, Castaño was officially charged with the murder.
Guzmán Quintero Torres, El Pilón, September 16, 1999, Valledupar
Quintero, editor of the daily newspaper El Pilón in the northern town of Valledupar, was shot and killed by two assassins on a motorcycle, At 10:00 p.m., Quintero was seated in Los Cardones Hotel and Restaurant, where he often stopped on his way home from work. He was relaxing with two colleagues from the newspaper when a single assassin entered the hotel and shot the journalist four times before escaping on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice.
Quintero co-founded the Journalists' Club of Valledupar. He was also the local correspondent for "Televista," a news program on the regional channel Telecaribe, and a professor at the National Correspondence University.
On September 29, police arrested two suspects, Jorge Espinal Velásquez and Rodolfo Nelson Rosado Martínez. According to local authorities, both men were identified by witnesses and are believed to be professional assassins.
Many local sources believe Quintero was killed in retaliation for his work as a journalist. They have suggested several possible motives. Quintero had recently been looking into the 1998 murder of Valledupar television journalist Amparo Leonor Jiménez Pallares. According to the attorney general's office, Jiménez was killed in retaliation for a story she broadcast in 1996 about the murder of peasants by a right-wing paramilitary death squad. As in Quintero's case, the gunman has been caught, but whoever was responsible for ordering the murder is still at large.
Quintero's assassination may also have been prompted by his public denunciation, in July, of an attack on the home of Saída Maestre, a presumed guerrilla sympathizer, in the town of Patillal. Quintero published the article after speaking with Maestre, who was then kidnapped on July 5. Her horribly mutilated body was found sometime later. The right-wing United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was linked to Maestre's murder, and many have speculated that Quintero may have signed his own death sentence by publicly denouncing the attack.
Rodolfo Julio Torres, Emisora Fuentes, October 21, 1999, San Onofre
Torres, correspondent with the Cartagena-based radio station Emisora Fuentes, was murdered outside the small town of Berrugas, part of the Atlantic coastal municipality of San Onofre in Sucre Department.
Early on October 21, a group of unidentified individuals abducted Torres from his home and drove the 38-year-old journalist to the outskirts of town. Local journalists said that after shooting him a number of times, they left him dead by the side of the road. His family and community members later discovered his body, according to a neighbor.
Torres had worked as the press secretary for Silfredo Mendoza, the recently elected mayor of a small town near Cartagena. He was formerly a correspondent with Radio Caracolí in Sincelejo, the capital of Sucre Department, and with the Sincelejo daily El Meridiano.
Torres' colleagues are convinced he was assassinated in reprisal for his outspoken reporting. He covered cockfights, known as major gambling sites, as well as general politics. One year ago, a series of anonymously distributed pamphlets accused him of being affiliated with leftist guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN). It is believed that the pamphlets came from the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a coalition of extreme-right-wing paramilitary groups.
Pablo Emilio Medina Motta, TV Garzón, December 4, 1999, Gigante
Medina, a cameraman with the regional station TV Garzón, was killed by multiple shots to the head and back when more than 100 leftist guerrillas stormed the town of Gigante, Huila Department. Six other people died and some 20 were wounded in the five-hour attack, perpetrated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
According to TV Garzón director Rulfo Ciceri, Medina, 19, had traveled to Gigante with him and a few other journalists to cover the attack. In order to reach the scene more quickly, Medina then jumped on the back of a motorcycle with a commander from the National Judicial Intelligence Service (SIJIN). The FARC guerrillas apparently mistook him for a member of the SIJIN forces.
Ciceri told CPJ that a commander of the FARC apologized to him for the error, explaining that they mistook Medina for a mosca, or "fly," a pejorative term for a police informer.
East Timor: 2
Sander Thoenes, free-lancer, September 21, 1999, Dili
The body of Thoenes, 30, a Dutch free-lance reporter on assignment for The Financial Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and the Dutch newspaper Vrij Nederland, was found on the morning of September 22 by United Nations forces in the Dili suburb of Becora, where Indonesian military and anti-independence militia forces had been active.
Thoenes was shot dead on the evening of September 21, when his motorcycle taxi attempted to escape a group of armed men blocking the road, according to investigators with the U.N. civilian police force in East Timor. Eyewitnesses, including Thoenes's Timorese driver, Florindo da Conceicao Araujo, told investigators that six gunmen wearing Indonesian army uniforms shot at the motorcycle, causing it to crash. Araujo said he fled when he saw that the gunmen were preparing to fire again. He last saw Thoenes lying in the middle of the street.
Australian peacekeepers discovered Thoenes's body the next morning. Investigators determined that he was most likely murdered by members of Indonesian army Battalion 745. Thoenes died of a gunshot wound through the back, but his killers had also sliced off his left ear and made several cuts in his face, according to a coroner's report released on January 27, 2000. The mutilation is reportedly a signature of Battalion 745.
Thoenes, a seasoned journalist who had experience working in East Timor and Indonesia, was believed to be the first foreign reporter killed in East Timor since 1975, when six Australia-based reporters were killed during the Indonesian military invasion of East Timor.
Agus Muliawan, Asia Press International, September 25, 1999, Baucau
Muliawan, a reporter for the Tokyo-based news agency Asia Press International, was massacred along with eight others. He was traveling with a Catholic aid group to Baucau from Los Palos, East Timor. Initial reports indicated that the gunmen were either Indonesian army regulars or army-backed militia members.
Muliawan, 26, had been in Dili since February working on a television documentary about Falintil, the largest East Timorese guerrilla group favoring independence from Indonesia. The journalist was Balinese and had established working relationships with many Indonesian military officials.
Muliawan was traveling by van with a group that included the head of the Caritas Roman Catholic aid agency, two students from a local seminary, two nuns, two assistants to the nuns, and a driver, according to Western news reports. The gunmen apparently attacked the group at a roadblock after nightfall in the town of Com as they drove from Los Palos, where they had been on a humanitarian mission, to Baucau. The bodies of Muliawan and the other victims were found in the van, which had been pushed into the Raomoko River, 38 miles (60 kilometers) from Baucau.
Lebanon: 1
Ilan Roeh, Israel Radio, February 28, 1999, southern Lebanon
Roeh, 32, a reporter with Israel Radio, was killed along with three Israeli military personnel when a roadside bomb exploded in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon. Roeh, a veteran correspondent who had covered southern Lebanon for five years, was traveling in a military convoy on a road between the Lebanese villages of Kawkaba and Hasbaya about four miles north of the Israeli border when the bomb went off, destroying the armored Mercedes in which he was riding. The Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack. Among the dead were Brig. Gen. Erez Gerstein, the highest-ranking Israeli officer killed in Lebanon since 1982.
Nigeria: 3
Fidelis Ikwuebe, free-lancer, April 18, 1999, Anambra
Ikwuebe, a free-lance journalist who contributed to the Lagos daily The Guardian, was abducted and murdered while covering violent clashes between the Aguleri and Umuleri communities in Anambra State. It was not clear who was responsible for Ikwuebe's death. According to local journalists, however, the state military administration at that time was very sensitive about news coverage of the fighting, which left several hundred people dead, and the environment was a dangerous one for journalists. Throughout the year, widespread communal fighting—including ethnic clashes and community feuds—killed many hundreds of civilians in different parts of the country.
Sam Nimfa-Jan, Details, May 27, 1999, Kafanchan
Nimfa-Jan, a journalist with the magazine Details, based in Jos, Plateau State, was killed in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, during ethnic clashes. He was on assignment covering riots between the Hausa Fulani and Zangon-Kataf groups that broke out over the installation of a new emir (traditional local leader) in the Jema'a area. Nigerian journalists, quoting local residents, said that Nimfa-Jan's corpse was found with arrows protruding from its back. Suspicions were apparently high that Hausas had killed him.
Samson Boyi, The Scope, November 5, 1999, Adamawa State
Boyi, a photojournalist with the Adamawa Stateowned newspaper The Scope, was killed when about 30 armed men attacked the convoy of the state governor, Haruna Bonnie, who was traveling from the state capital, Yola, to the town of Bauchi. Boyi was one of several journalists assigned to cover the trip.
Neither the identities nor the motives of the attackers have been determined. When they opened fire on the convoy, the governor's security guards fired back. Boyi died in the cross fire. His colleague, Umar Mustaphar, a Yola-based reporter with the Nigeria Television Authority, sustained bullet wounds.
Russia: 3
Supian Ependiyev, Groznensky Rabochy, October 27, 1999, Grozny
Ependiyev, a veteran correspondent for the independent Chechnen weekly Groznensky Rabochy, was killed in a Russian army rocket attack on the Chechen capital, Grozny.
On the evening of October 27, several rockets hit a crowded outdoor market in central Grozny. About an hour after the attack, Ependiyev went to the scene to cover the carnage for his paper. As Ependiyev was leaving the site, a new round of rockets fell about 200 meters (60 feet) from the bazaar. He suffered severe shrapnel wounds and died in a Grozny hospital the next morning, according to CPJ sources.
In previous weeks, heavy Russian artillery fire had forced Groznensky Rabochy to move its editorial operations to Nazran, in neighboring Ingushetia. Ependiyev was one of two correspondents who remained in Grozny to cover the Russian military campaign against Islamist militants in Chechnya. Until his death, the reporter had been making the dangerous trek between Grozny and Nazran weekly to file stories.
Ramzan Mezhidov, TV Tsentr, October 29, 1999
Shamil Gigayev, Nokh Cho TV, October 29, 1999
Mezhidov, a free-lance cameraman working for the Moscow-based TV Tsentr, and Gigayev, a cameraman for independent Nokh Cho Television in Grozny, were killed during a Russian air attack on refugees fleeing Chechnya.
The journalists were covering a refugee convoy en route from Grozny to Nazran, in neighboring Ingushetia. As the convoy approached the Chechen town of Shaami Yurt, a Russian bomber fired several rockets from the air, hitting a busload of refugees. Despite warnings from colleagues traveling with them, Mezhidov and Gigayev left their vehicle to film the carnage. As they approached the bus, another Russian rocket hit a nearby truck, fatally wounding both journalists.
Sierra Leone: 10
James Ogogo, Concord Times, January 8, 1999, Freetown
Ogogo, a Nigerian journalist for the independent Concord Times, was murdered by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Freetown on the evening of January 8. An eyewitness reported that a group of rebels sought out Ogogo at the newspaper's offices on Pademba Road, shouting that they were "looking for the Nigerian journalist."
The rebels tied Ogogo to the back of a truck and dragged him in the direction of the State House. Before reaching the State House, the rebels stopped the truck, untied Ogogo, and told him to start walking. They then opened fire and killed him.
RUF rebels regarded Nigerian journalists as partisans of the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG), which was brought in to support government troops in the ongoing civil war in Sierra Leone.
Jenner "J.C." Cole, SKY-FM, January 9, 1999, Freetown
Cole, an on-air broadcaster with the independent radio station SKY-FM, was abducted by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels from his home near Sandars Street in central Freetown. He was being taken along with other captives to an RUF base in the east end of Freetown when a distraction caused by a West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) plane flying overhead allowed the other prisoners to flee.
Cole, who was prevented by the RUF rebels from escaping, was shot dead by his abductors in front of his fiancee. RUF forces reportedly entered Freetown with a list of journalists to be eliminated for what was perceived as "anti-RUF" coverage.
Mabay Kamara, free-lancer, January 9, 1999, Freetown
Kamara, a free-lance reporter who contributed to the now defunct newspaper Vision, was abducted by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels from his house on Soldier Street near the State House in central Freetown and subsequently murdered. A female RUF commander ordered Kamara's abduction, which was witnessed by his wife. Rebels set the Kamara residence on fire before leaving the area.
Mohammed Kamara, SKY-FM, January 9, 1999, Freetown
Kamara, a correspondent for the independent radio station SKY-FM, was shot dead by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels on Siaka Stevens Street in central Freetown. The journalist covered court proceedings, including the treason trials that followed President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's reinstatement. Kabbah was ousted by RUF forces in May 1997 and returned to power in March 1998 with the help of the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG).
Paul Mansaray, Standard Times, January 9, 1999, Freetown
Mansaray, deputy editor of the independent Standard Times, was murdered by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels at their home in Calabar Town, east of Freetown. His wife, their two young children, and a nephew were also killed. A fellow journalist who was with Mansaray and his family at the time saw the rebels approaching the house and escaped through a window as Mansaray was alerting his family to flee.
The RUF rebels were overheard shouting at Mansaray and threatening him about his journalistic work. They set the house ablaze, firing their weapons into it as it burned to the ground with Mansaray and his family inside.
Myles Tierney, Associated Press Television News, January 10, 1999, Freetown
Tierney, a Nairobi-based television producer for Associated Press Television News (APTV), was killed in Freetown while riding with several other journalists when his vehicle was sprayed with bullets by a man reported to be a Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel. A West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) soldier was in the vehicle with the journalists when an armed man approached them and, after an exchange with the soldier, opened fire on the passengers with a semiautomatic rifle. Tierney was killed instantly. Ian Stewart, 32, APTV West Africa bureau chief, was critically wounded. Nairobi-based AP photographer David Guttenfelder suffered cuts from broken glass.
Munir Turay, free-lancer, January 1999, Freetown
Turay, a free-lance reporter working for the independent newspaper Punch and the state-owned Daily Mail, as well as the state-owned Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service, was killed sometime between January 9 and January 15 in Kissy, in Freetown's east end. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown, but colleagues who attended his funeral on February 9 reported that he had bullet holes in his back.
At that time, rebel forces, consisting of members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and renegade soldiers of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, were systematically murdering journalists, and Turay's colleagues did not doubt that he had been killed for his work.
Alpha Amadu Bah, Independent Observer, January 17, 1999, Freetown
Amadu Bah, a sports reporter for the daily Independent Observer, was killed by a group of about 20 rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council at his home on Kissy Road in the east end of Freetown.
According to an eyewitness, the rebels who came to Amadu Bah's house asked for a different person, who was out at the time. The rebels then set the house on fire and shot Amadu Bah dead as he was trying to flee. Two of Amadu Bah's colleagues (one of whom witnessed the killing) told CPJ that, considering the rebels' hatred of the press, they were certain that he had been killed because he was a journalist.
Abdulai Jumah Jalloh, African Champion, February 3, 1999, Freetown
Jalloh, news editor of the independent newspaper African Champion, was killed by a West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) soldier in central Freetown, according to local journalists. Jalloh and the newspaper's editor, Mohammed D. Koroma, were on their way to a printing company near the state house when a passerby claimed—in the presence of ECOMOG soldiers—that Jalloh was a Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel and accused him of arson. Jalloh denied the charge, as did Koroma, who told the ECOMOG soldiers that RUF rebels had burned Jalloh's house.
The soldiers warned Koroma not to continue defending Jalloh. An unidentified ECOMOG officer then took Jalloh aside and executed him at point-blank range.
Conrad Roy, Expo Times, April 30, 1999, Freetown
Roy, former news editor of the banned Expo Times newspaper, died after contracting tuberculosis in Freetown's central prison. The Sierra Leonean government closed the newspaper in 1997, claiming that it was run by sympathizers of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement.
In December 1998, Roy appeared at the magistrate's court, where he was convicted of treason, aiding and abetting the enemy, and conspiring to overthrow the government. Roy was released from prison during the RUF occupation of Freetown in January 1999. After RUF forces retreated from the city in February, soldiers of the Nigerian-led peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) rearrested him. Roy contracted tuberculosis in prison. He received no medical treatment until April 26, four days before his death in Lakka TB Hospital, 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Freetown.
Sri Lanka: 2
Indika Pathinivasan, Maharaja Television Network, December 18, 1999, Colombo
Anura Priyantha, Independent Television Network, December 18, 1999, Colombo
Pathinivasan, a camera assistant for Sri Lanka's privately owned Maharaja Television Network, and Priyantha, a camera assistant for the state-owned Independent Television Network, were fatally wounded by shrapnel from a suicide bomb aimed at President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga at an election rally in Colombo. Five other journalists were injured by the blast, along with Kumaratunga and scores of onlookers.
The bomb exploded at around 10 p.m. near a barrier separating journalists, including Pathinivasan and Priyantha, from Kumaratunga and a car that had arrived to pick her up. At least 22 people were killed in the assassination attempt, according to police.
Pathinivasan died instantly of shrapnel wounds. Priyantha died later at a Colombo hospital.
Turkey: 1
Ahmet Taner Kislali, Cumhuriyet, October 21, 1999, Ankara
Kislali, a regular columnist for the daily Cumhuriyet, was killed in a bomb attack in front of his suburban home in the capital, Ankara. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital after reportedly sustaining shrapnel wounds to his face and chest. His left arm was also torn off. Press reports, citing Turkish officials, said that the bomb was wrapped in newspaper and placed on the windshield of Kislali's car. When Kislali attempted to remove the package, it exploded.
While the identity of the perpetrators is unclear, Turkish security officials have been quoted as saying that the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, an extremist, underground Islamist group, claimed responsibility for the killing of Kislali, who was a staunch secularist and critic of the Islamist movement in Turkey. These reports, however, have not been verified.
In addition to his work at Cumhuriyet, Kislali taught political science at Ankara University. He served as culture minister in the late 1970s and had also been a member of Parliament.
Yugoslavia: 6
Slavko Curuvija, Dnevni Telegraf, Evropljanin, April 11, 1999, Belgrade
Curuvija, 51, owner of the mass-circulation Dnevni Telegraf, the first private daily newspaper in Serbia, and the weekly magazine Evropljanin, was killed in what appeared to be a professional killing at 4:40 p.m. outside his home near the Yugoslav Parliament building.
Curuvija's wife, Branka Prpa, who was pistol-whipped in the attack, said two gunmen dressed in black leather jackets fired several bullets into her husband's back and head. His murder was the first that targeted a member of the independent Serbian media.
Curuvija had visited Washington, D.C., in December 1998, when he told the U.S. Congress' Helsinki Commission that questioning the rule of President Slobodan Milosevic had become tantamount to treason. In March, he was fined and sentenced to five months in jail for "spreading false information," a violation of Serbia's restrictive information law, after he published a story linking the killing of a Belgrade doctor to the Serbian deputy prime minister, Milovan Bojic. Curuvija refused to pay the fine and was appealing the sentence.
Just days before his murder, state television broadcast accusations against Curuvija alleging that he supported NATO's attack on Yugoslavia.
Shao Yunhuan, Xinhua News Agency, May 8, 1999, Belgrade
Xu Xinghu, The Guangming Daily, May 8, 1999, Belgrade
Zhu Ying, The Guangming Daily, May 8, 1999, Belgrade
Yunhuan, Xinghu, and Ying, all Chinese nationals, were on assignment in Belgrade to report on the war between NATO and Serbian forces. They were killed during the night when NATO bombs hit the Chinese Embassy, where the journalists were staying. Shao was 48, Xu was 29, and Zhu was 27.
Volker Kraemer, Stern, June 13, 1999, Kosovo
Gabriel Gruener, Stern, June 13, 1999, Kosovo
Kraemer, 56, a photographer, and Gruener, 35, a correspondent, were on assignment in Kosovo for the German magazine Stern. The two journalists and their interpreter, Senol Alit, were returning by car to Macedonia when they encountered sniper fire outside Dulje, 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Pristina. The journalists tried to flee on foot and were hit at long range. Kraemer was killed instantly by a shot to the head; Groener was hit in the abdomen and died in a helicopter while being taken to a hospital in Tetovo, Macedonia. Alit, who was driving the car, was also killed. His body was found lying next to the car.
Angola: 1
Mauricio Cristovao, Radio 5, August 31, 1999, Luanda
Cristovao, a reporter for Radio 5, the sports channel on the government-owned Radio Nacional de Angola, was shot dead in Luanda, the capital. Cristovao was apparently shot three times by unidentified gunmen who ambushed him on his way home. The motive for the killing remains unclear. Several sources in Angola told CPJ that, despite the fact that Angolan journalists operate in a dangerous political climate, they doubted this case was politically motivated.
Colombia: 2
Alberto Sánchez Tovar, Producciones Colombia, November 28, 1999, El Playón
Luis Alberto Rincón Solano, free-lancer, November 28, 1999, El Playón
Sánchez Tovar, a cameraman for Producciones Colombia, and Rincón Solano, a free-lance cameraman, were murdered outside the town of El Playón, in the northeastern department of Santander.
Local sources informed CPJ that the two cameramen had left Bucaramanga, capital of Santander Department, early in the morning of November 28 to shoot a video of the mayoral elections in El Playón. Armed individuals shot and killed them on the road just outside of El Playón, where colleagues found their bodies later that day. Both men died from bullet wounds to the head.
Sánchez Tovar owned Producciones Colombia, a Bucaramanga-based company that produced institutional and broadcast videos. Josue Jaimes Caballero, one of the mayoral candidates, had hired him as campaign videographer.
Sánchez Tovar then hired Rincón Solano, a free-lance cameraman who had formerly worked for the local production company Comuneros Televisión, to assist him in the job.
Guatemala
Larry Lee, BridgeNews, December 28, 1999, Guatemala City
Lee, Guatemala correspondent for the financial wire BridgeNews, was found stabbed to death in his Guatemala City apartment.
Early in the afternoon, a friend found Lee's body on the bed of his apartment in the downtown area Zone One. Lee had been stabbed in the throat, back, and side, and the apartment door was open. According to local press reports December 26 newspapers were strewn on the floor of his apartment, suggesting that a scuffle had taken place.
A financial and economic reporter, Lee started freelancing for BridgeNews in August 1998, and became a full time reporter five months later. Born in 1958, he had worked as a freelance and staff reporter and editor for several U.S. newspapers, including the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the El Paso Herald-Post, the San Antonio Express-News, and the Dallas Morning News.
Lee had recently covered the December 26 presidential elections in Guatemala, and was not known to have received threats for his work.
Colleagues at the Foreign Press Club in Guatemala said Lee had been planning to move to Mexico and had recently put adds in Guatemalan newspapers offering some of his possessions for sale. One add reportedly was found in the doorway of his apartment, but no valuables had been taken.
On November 9, 2001, CPJ wrote a letter to Guatemala's Attorney General Adolfo González Rodas, expressing its deep concern about the lack of progress in the investigation. "While the motive for Lee's killing is unknown, it is quite clear that the murder investigation has been deeply flawed. Because Guatemalan authorities have not determined who killed Lee, or why he was killed, CPJ cannot rule out the journalist's work as a motive," CPJ wrote.
"The investigation into Lee's killing has been a tragedy of errors," the letter continued, "and would probably have stalled completely had the journalist's family not fought to keep the limping inquiry alive. Fingerprints taken from the crime scene were never identified. Police conducted only cursory interviews with Lee's friends and quickly lost touch with at least one individual who had been identified as a potential suspect. It took nearly two months for an autopsy report to be issued."
Among the flaws the letter highlighted, was the fact that Guatemalan authorities kept Lee's apartment sealed for nearly four months. When Lee's brother Scott finally gained entry, he found a towel with bloodstains that did not match Lee's blood type. Only three months later was the blood shipped to Colombia for DNA tests. The results have still not been received in Guatemala.
Whoever murdered Lee apparently stole his cell phone and used it to make calls, but authorities have made no effort to obtain a record of calls that might have been made after his death. Lee's family acquired a copy of Lee's phone bill from BridgeNews and had a private investigator make a cursory check of several of the numbers called, but Guatemalan police have not followed up this lead, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Great Britain: 1
Jill Dando, BBC, April 26, 1999, London
Dando, a prominent television presenter on the BBC Crimewatch program , was shot in the head outside her London home.
Dando was a well-known television personality and had earlier been stalked by a fan. The London weekly Observer reported that someone claiming to be a Serb had contacted Dando two weeks before her death to say she should not have made an appeal on behalf of Kosovar Albanian
refugees. Police explored leads to a wide range of potential suspects, including an alleged Serb assassin and a jilted lover.
On July 2, 2001, Barry George was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Dando. George, 41, who also lived in West London, was fascinated by the military, collected guns, and was said to be obsessed with celebrities.
Following the trial, however, several British newspapers openly questioned the conviction pointing out that the murder weapon was never recovered, there were no witnesses to the crime, and no motive has ever been established. On December 13 George was granted leave to appeal his sentence. Three appeals court judges will hear the case in the summer of 2002.
India: 3
Shivani Bhatnagar, Indian Express, January 23, 1999, New Delhi
Bhatnagar, special correspondent for the prestigious English-language daily Indian Express, was found dead in her East Delhi apartment. According to police, unknown assailants entered Bhatnagar's flat earlier in the day, strangled her with a length of wire, and then stabbed her in the neck and abdomen with kitchen knives. The attackers apparently found Bhatnagar alone with her three-month old son, Tanmay, who was not harmed.
Police said there were no signs of forced entry, and that the drawing room table had been laid with snacks as if Bhatnagar was entertaining guests. A post-mortem report prepared at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences concluded that Bhatnagar died from strangulation, and police estimated that she was killed at around 3:30 p.m.
Bhatnagar was a member of the special investigations team at the Indian Express. Early news reports speculated that her killers may have been attempting to recover certain incriminating documents. Two rooms in the Bhatnagar's residence at the Nav Kunj Apartments in Patparganj were apparently ransacked. Although police stated that robbery did not appear to be a motive in this crime, they were not convinced that Bhatnagar's murder was related to her professional work.
CPJ raised Bhatnagar's case in letters sent to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on January 27 and March 22 urging him to ensure a thorough investigation into the attack
Irfan Hussain, Outlook, March 13, 1999, New Delhi
Police found the mutilated, decomposed body of Hussain, a cartoonist for the English-language weekly newsmagazine Outlook, on the side of a Delhi highway. Hussain's wife first reported him missing late on March 8, when he did not arrive home hours after calling her from a mobile phone to say he was 15 minutes away.
Hussain's throat was slit; he had also been stabbed 28 times and strangled, according to police statements reported in the local press. His body was found with both hands and feet tightly bound.
On March 11, two days before Hussain's body was found, the wife of another cartoonist reportedly received a threatening phone call from someone who claimed to be a member of the Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist political organization. The caller allegedly claimed that the Shiv Sena was responsible for Hussain's murder, and that her husband, Paresh Nath, a cartoonist for the newspaper National Herald, and Sudhir Tailang, a cartoonist for the newspaper Hindustan Times, would be targeted next in reprisal for their cartoons mocking leaders of the Shiv Sena and the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Peter Popham wrote in London's The Independent that one of Hussain's "typical recent [cartoons], published when Hindu-Christian antagonism was running high, showed a demonic little [Hindu nationalist] figure squatting on a cross being dragged by a ragged, Christ-like figure inscribed SECULARISM: foretelling the end of secular values in an era under the sway of Hindu extremists."
On November 27, police told reporters they had arrested a seven-member gang of car thieves who had confessed to the murder.
N.A. Lalruhlu, Shan, October 10, 1999, Manipur
Lalruhlu, editor of the Hmar-language newspaper Shan, was shot and killed along with three companions in the northeastern state of Manipur. Police said they suspected separatist militants of carrying out the attack. "The four victims riding on two scooters were stopped by the militants taken to a nearby forest and shot at point-blank range," Manipur Police Superintendent Ashutosh Sinha told the Press Trust of India.
According to CPJ's sources, a militant group calling itself the Hmar Revolutionary Front issued a press release claiming responsibility for the killings. The statement stated that Lalruhlu, a member of the Hmar tribe, was murdered not for his work as a journalist, but because he was involved with a competing militant group. Manipur is plagued by separatist and ethnic violence.
Cote D'Ivoire ( Ivory Coast ): 1
Abdoulaye Bakayoko, Le Libéral, September 21, 1999, Abidjan
Bakayoko, owner and manager of the daily newspaper Le Libéral (linked to the opposition Rassemblement des Republicains party), was shot at point-blank range near his car by unidentified gunmen, who fled in a vehicle. Bakayoko died of his wounds in hospital that evening.
Although police claimed the killing was the result of an attempted car theft, many pointed instead to the increasing and sometimes violent harassment of both journalists and opposition party members in the country.
Nigeria: 1
Bolade Fasasi, National Association of Women Journalists, March 31, 1999, Ibadan
Fasasi, an active member of the National Association of Women Journalists and former treasurer of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), was shot dead by three unidentified gunmen in Ibadan. Despite widespread calls for a government inquiry, both the motive and the perpetrators remain unknown. On May 4, another journalist and NUJ official, Lanre Arogundade, was charged with Fasasi's murder. In August, the case against him was dropped for lack of evidence.
Pakistan: 1
Nawaz Zulfiqar Memon, The Nation, December 3, 1999, Islamabad
Memon, Thatta-based correspondent for the national English-language daily The Nation, was detained and severely tortured by law enforcement agents at the Islamabad airport. Memon had gone to Islamabad to inform Pakistan's Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Musharraf of a crime he had witnessed in Thatta. (Local police were apparently unwilling to pursue the case) Memon was released three days later after his father intervened and brought him back to Thatta.
Memon died on December 16, apparently of injuries from his prolonged torture. Local journalists and members of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a well-respected nongovernmental organization, investigated the case and told CPJ that the tragedy was unrelated to Memon's journalistic work.
Russia: 2
Valentina Neverova, Pravo, February 10, 1999, Samara
Valentina Neverova, editor of the state-owned newspaper Pravo, died in a suspicious fire that swept the Internal Affairs Ministry's regional headquarters in Samara.
Neverova, 53, was in the building interviewing officials for an article in Pravo, which is published by the Internal Affairs Ministry and focuses on law enforcement issues. Like dozens of other victims, Neverova was trapped in the building, unable to jump out of its windows, which had bars on them.
Samara has been plagued with growing organized crime. Ministry employees who survived the blaze said some crime investigators had received anonymous threatening phone calls before the fire.
While investigators have claimed that faulty wiring probably caused the fir, many employees continue to suspect arson.
Vadim Rudenko, ORT, June 30, 1999, Moscow
Rudenko, a correspondent for the Russian public television network ORT's crime program Chelovek i zakon (Man and the Law) was found dead in his Moscow flat. Smelling smoke from behind his door, his neighbors called the fire department. Police investigators found that Rudenko had sustained several knife wounds before his apartment was set on fire.
Rudenko's boss, Alexei Pimanov, said he believed Rudenko's murder was connected with his work but declined to offer any evidence. Other colleagues said they knew of no evidence to substantiate such a claim.
Sri Lanka: 3
Atputharajah Nadarajah, Thinamurusu, November 2, 1999, Colombo
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed Nadarajah, editor of the Tamil daily Thinamurusu, on the streets of Colombo. Gunmen surrounded Nadarajah's van on his way to work. His driver was also killed in the attack, and two passers-by were injured.
Nadarajah was also a member of Parliament, representing the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), a former Tamil rebel group that entered mainstream party politics in 1990. Though the EPDP are considered moderate in comparison with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a guerrilla group that is still fighting for a separate homeland for the Tamil people, news reports have indicated growing fissures in the party. Political observers in Sri Lanka noted that Nadarajah often criticized his own party in the pages of Thinamurusu and had also expressed his support for Tamil militants.
By year's end, police had made no arrests in the case.
Rohana Kumara, Satana, September 7, 1999, Colombo
Kumara, chief editor of the pro-opposition Sinhala-language newspaper Satana, was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen at around 10 p.m. as he traveled in a taxi to his home in the Colombo suburb of Mirihana. The gunmen reportedly fled the scene in a silver Toyota 300 car. Kumara had received a phone call earlier that night notifying him that a group of men had entered his home and had threatened to harm his wife if she did not reveal her husband's whereabouts.
The motive for the killing was unclear, but journalists in Sri Lanka feared Kumara may have been murdered for his work. CPJs sources characterized Satana (Battle) as a controversial tabloid paper with a reputation for attacking the government and uncovering personal and political scandals.
The opposition United National Party financed Satana, though it had previously received funding from the People s Alliance coalition when that party was in the opposition, according to the Colombo-based Free Media Movement. The People's Alliance leader, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, has since been elected president of Sri Lanka.
On September 9, CPJ sent a letter to President Kumaratunga condemning Kumara's murder and urging her ensure that the case was thoroughly investigated. Though President Kumaratunga did indeed order an immediate investigation, local journalists told CPJ at year's end that police appeared to have abandoned the case.
Vasthian Anthony Mariyadas, free-lancer, December 31, 1999, Vavuniya
Mariyadas, a free-lance radio reporter, was on assignment for the state-run Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation when he was killed in the northern town of Vavuniya.
A lone gunman shot Mariyadas in the head outside St. Anthony's Church, where he had gone to cover the New Year's Eve midnight mass service for a radio program broadcast in northern Sri Lanka. The journalist died before he could be taken to the hospital, according to CPJ's sources. Police estimated the time of death at 10:15 p.m.
Vavuniya is a government stronghold in the ongoing civil war between government forces and Tamil separatist rebels. However, there is no direct evidence linking Mariyadas's killing to this conflict.
Tajikistan: 1
Dzhumakhon Khotami, July 5, 1999, Dushanbe
Khotami, chief spokesperson for Tajikistan's Interior Ministry, was assassinated. He anchored a weekly program on national TV in which he aired in-depth and reportedly very professional investigative reports on drug trafficking—a huge problem in Tajikistan—corruption, and organized crime.
A group of Tajik journalists that visited CPJ on July 15 said he was highly respected for his professionalism and courage. He had long stated publicly that he expected to be killed one day in retaliation for his revelations about the country's drug bosses, whose names he broadcast on his program. While the local journalists referred to him as a journalist, Western news agencies did not because he was a high-ranking Interior Ministry official.